Proteinaceous Resource Distribution by Single Foundresses of the Paper Wasp Polistes jokahamae (Hymenoptera, Vespidae)

Nests are structures built by animals to protect their own offspring from predation, parasitism, and harsh climatic conditions. However, these structures are generally costly to build and maintain. Polistes wasps build paper nests using plant fibers. They also use oral secretion, mainly composed of proteinaceous elements, to construct and maintain their nests. Due to the high production cost of oral secretion, wasps must efficiently allocate proteinaceous resources between rearing their brood and producing the secretion. We evaluated the investment made by the foundresses of P. jokahamae in their nests based on the amount of oral secretions. It has been estimated that 7—9% of the nitrogen (proteinaceous) resources were used to produce oral secretions. The results suggested that a single P. jokahamae foundress partitions available proteinaceous resources not only among the first batch of the brood but also produces the oral secretions. There is a strong pressure related to the limited allocation of resources during the single-foundress period of Polistes wasps.